Smash Bracket has just released their Kirby vs Jigglypuff episode. I’ve heard a ton of questions about how we’re handling these characters that the video didn’t have time to go over, but I’ve addressed all the most common questions here in this article.
· Kirby
∘ Why did you say that Kirby was inconsistent?
∘ Why are you using minigames for Kirby?
∘ Isn’t Star Slam Heroes an outlier?
∘ Why didn’t you treat Popstar as being the same size as Earth?
∘ Why is there such a big gap between Kirby’s offense and defense?
∘ Why didn’t you downplay Kirby’s strength like you did to (insert my favorite losing character)?
∘ Why is Kirby so far above Meta Knight?
∘ If Kirby is so strong, why does he still struggle to break boxes and other in-game items?
∘ Wouldn’t Kirby take it easy on Jigglypuff?
∘ Isn’t Kirby’s warpstar massively faster than light?
∘ If Meta Knight is so fast, why doesn’t Kirby get that speed if he fights him all the time?
∘ Why did you consider the Pokemon anime, but not the Kirby Anime? It was made by Sakurai!
∘ Wouldn’t infatuation be ineffective against Kirby since Kirby doesn’t actually have an official gender?
· Jigglypuff
∘ Why are you using animations for Z-moves but not for other moves?
∘ Why are you using the anime, manga, and games for Pokemon?
∘ Couldn’t Jigglypuff use Perish Song to kill Kirby?
∘ What about Endeavor + Endure/Focus Sash?
∘ Why does Jigglypuff get Egg moves?
∘ What about Seismic Toss?
∘ Isn’t her speed a gag?
∘ Why does Jigglypuff get items/tms/hms/etc?
∘ Why do Pokemon get access to their entire moveset?
∘ Jigglypuff kicked Pikachu faster than he could see… Why doesn’t she scale to his reaction speed?
∘ Why doesn’t Jigglypuff win if she can just make Kirby kill himself?
∘ Couldn’t Jigglypuff lock Kirby into status effects to win?
∘ Could Jigglypuff’s trainer just catch Kirby in a Pokeball?
∘ Wasn’t this a huge stomp? How could Jigglypuff ever stand a fair chance?
∘ How are you deciding which moves/items Pokemon will use?
∘ Why are you presenting Jigglypuff in a way that you could never play with in-game?
Kirby
Why did you say that Kirby was inconsistent?
Kirby demonstrates vastly different levels of strength throughout his franchise, but so do most characters. The problem with Kirby is that many of those displays of strength depend on the size of other objects that are inconsistent in size. Kirby survived an explosion that took out a sizable portion of a moon, but that moon is displayed anywhere from tens of meters to hundred of meters. Most of the time it doesn’t even exist. This applies to basically everything in Kirby, from planet Popstar to its moons to the enemies Kirby fights to Kirby himself.
Most of the time, when we need to deal with an object with unclear dimensions, we just compare it to something in real life. But in Kirby’s case, his games go out of their way to make it clear that some things shouldn’t be comparable to real life. When we see Popstar being portrayed as a foot in diameter, we don’t really buy that as being literal. But it does show that Popstar is considered to be far smaller than normal planets (that portrayal in isolation could be brushed aside as a gag that we shouldn’t read into at all, but together with other portrayals it becomes harder to ignore). To us, this meant that using a real-life equivalent would massively misrepresent the franchise. That makes researching Kirby extremely frustrating and difficult.
Why are you using minigames for Kirby?
I’ve actually got a separate article written about minigames here that goes into more detail about our reasoning for minigames in general. But the basic idea is that Kirby’s minigames help provide examples of him operating in different contexts (such as ones where he doesn’t have to hold back) and aren’t creating new powers for him (at least in the ones we used).
Isn’t Star Slam Heroes an outlier?
Kirby hitting that asteroid gives him an unbelievable amount of power. In mathematical terms, it’s definitely an outlier because it is so far above anything else that he can do. However, when you compare this feat to the implied threat of the enemies that Kirby has killed, the statements made about his power, and some of Kirby’s other feats that imply high levels of power but didn’t stand up to our scrutiny, we felt like this feat was actually very in line with Kirby’s portrayed level of power.
Why didn’t you treat Popstar as being the same size as Earth?
The idea that Popstar is a similar size to Earth is based on a fan theory with very little evidence. The idea is that Shiver Star is actually Earth and Popstar is about the same size as Shiver Star. But even if we were to assume that Shiver Star is Earth, the planets are never compared in a meaningful way. The only times we see them in a manner that would let us compare their size and distance to each other, they are obviously not meant to be a to-scale representation. We do see them take up an almost identical amount of space in the UI, but that’s not really something that gives us super irrefutable numbers, especially when we consider that the planets have already proven to not care about correct size scaling in other contexts.
Why is there such a big gap between Kirby’s offense and defense?
Because Kirby hasn’t displayed defensive feats on the same level as his offensive feats. There are some arguments for him scaling to at least a portion of his defensive abilities, but we honestly didn’t find anything convincing here until last minute. The durability gap didn’t really matter for this episode, so it was a low priority for us. It will be re-evaluated for Kirby’s next match.
Why didn’t you downplay Kirby’s strength like you did to (insert my favorite losing character)?
We don’t intentionally downplay anyone’s strength. It’s just that most feats don’t hold up when examined under our philosophy. Despite all his inconsistency, Kirby still managed to have enough concrete feats to be extremely strong.
Why is Kirby so far above Meta Knight?
Kirby has simply demonstrated far more impressive feats than Meta Knight and Meta Knight hasn’t displayed anything that could scale him to Kirby under our rules. We will be re-evaluating Meta Knight for his future episodes, though, so it’s possible we will find something that closes the gap.
If Kirby is so strong, why does he still struggle to break boxes and other in-game items?
While there are items in-game that can’t be broken, we don’t actually consider those anti-feats due to their representation in gameplay. However, it is notable that Kirby is only shattering boxes he breaks instead of completely reducing them to dust. And there are items that he can’t break without certain powers. Neither of these makes any sense if Kirby actually had the level of power we presented with his baseball feat.
And honestly, that’s the answer. It really just doesn’t make any sense. Even if Kirby was only demonstrating an unfathomably small percentage of his max power it would still be enough to destroy planets.
One answer is that everything, even seemingly-mundane objects, in the worlds that Kirby visits have insane levels of durability. However, given how Kirby seems to be able to significantly change major aspects of himself when he copies powers, I believe the more likely explanation is that he basically has two “modes:” one where he is at godly levels of strength and the other where he’s not particularly strong. As far as I’m aware, there’s no actual proof for any explanation, and there are likely significant problems with both. But assuming that Kirby works this way creates the least contradictions. It’s just another example of Kirby being frustratingly inconsistent.
Wouldn’t Kirby take it easy on Jigglypuff?
So if Kirby is basically never even using a fraction of his true strength, why did he seem to hit so hard here? Jigglypuff would actually have been able to endure hits from Kirby at his normal levels of power, so it’s actually a pretty big deal to decide which “mode” Kirby would be in. While that’s a hard call to make in general, Kirby has only ever shown to display his true strength in one situation: competitions. Even Star Slam Heroes seems to be a competition of some sort based on the end screen. Since one of the rules for Smash Bracket is that all the fighters know they are in a competition, Kirby is extremely likely to use far more power than normal.
Isn’t Kirby’s warpstar massively faster than light?
Yeah, almost certainly (I personally believe it teleports and doesn’t ever reach meaningfully fast speeds, but there’s not actually enough evidence to use this theory in Smash Bracket). But Kirby has never demonstrated these speeds in combat, so it doesn’t really mean anything in a fight.
There is an argument that Kriby should have his reaction speed scale to his travel speed, that doesn’t really hold up to our examination. I’ll have an article coming out sometime soon detailing how we’re handling different types of speed to make that argument more clear. To be completely honest, we’re still ironing out how we’re handling these different types of speed and didn’t want to make a firm call here since it didn’t impact the match much and we want to make sure that we’re not deciding things hastily.
If Meta Knight is so fast, why doesn’t Kirby get that speed if he fights him all the time?
Meta Knight has never displayed that speed in combat and Kirby has never fought him in a way that would directly compare their speeds.
Why did you consider the Pokemon anime, but not the Kirby Anime? It was made by Sakurai!
The big difference is that Sakurai doesn’t actually represent the Kirby franchise on his own. Hal Laboratories are the ones making the final call on what is official for Kirby, and they didn’t have any involvement with the show. Pokemon is a super unique circumstance due to how the franchise was conceived and created, so it gets access to its anime and manga. The Kirby 20th anniversary book does have a large section on the anime and manga, but we didn’t have the time or resources to get that translated. It’s possible we can have a better idea on its canon status in the future.
Wouldn’t infatuation be ineffective against Kirby since Kirby doesn’t actually have an official gender?
Kirby has never had his gender officially confirmed in Japanese, but that’s different than being genderless. Localizations that don’t have gender-neutral terms refer to him as a male. But most importantly, Kirby has been shown to be easily flustered by kisses in the past. We felt that showed that Kirby was susceptible to the kind of influence that infatuation would be exerting on him, though we wouldn’t have it last indefinitely like in the games (it wears off mid-battle in both the anime and manga sometimes).
Jigglypuff
Why are you using animations for Z-moves but not for other moves?
In general, we tried to use the anime to establish how a move worked. When it wasn’t clear, we used the manga. And if it still wasn’t clear, we used the games. This order reflects how clearly moves are displayed throughout the franchise, so this approach allows us to throw out a lot of the ambiguity that the games include with their animations (my favorite is seismic toss throwing Pokemon between galaxies). This means that the moves that haven’t been shown enough in the anime or manga are based on their in-game effects. That isn’t many moves though, and even then, most animations are too vague to be usable. In the case of Z-moves and Dynamax moves, though, things are pretty straightforward.
Why are you using the anime, manga, and games for Pokemon?
Pokemon was created in a really unique situation. The games, manga, and anime were all created at the same time at the direction of the Pokemon company with the express purpose of giving a wide variety of entry points to the series. But they also made sure that each medium would express Pokemon in a similar way so that people could talk about their experiences with each without getting lost in differences. There are definitely differences between each, especially in the stories that are told, but we felt like the Pokemon were presented in a consistent enough way for us to be comfortable using all three mediums.
Couldn’t Jigglypuff use Perish Song to kill Kirby?
Yes, but it would take her out of the fight too. I’ve heard some people argue that she could plug her ears and then sing, and while that does sound like something that would be possible with the logic the anime and manga operate with, we didn’t consider it since it’s removing the main drawback of the move (also, have you ever tried talking while plugging your ears? You can still hear yourself).
What about Endeavor + Endure/Focus Sash?
Using a Focus Sash would let Jigglypuff tank an attack with 1 HP left. Jigglypuff could then use Endeavor to set Kirby’s HP to 1. The following turn, using a priority move (like Quick Attack) would guarantee a kill on Kirby. This would technically work, assuming everything functioned the same way it does in game. But even if this was true (it’s not, priority moves being just one example of something that works completely differently in other media), it is reliant on Kirby trying to one-shot Jigglypuff instead of using something like a multi-hit move or just a weak move first.
The even bigger problem is that a Focus Sash just isn’t a great option in general, especially for a Pokemon built for 1v1 battles. Jigglypuff doesn’t have much defense, so there’s a decent argument that she could be built for this strategy, but we felt like there were other, more likely options that she would use.
Why does Jigglypuff get Egg moves?
Pokemon are normally limited in what moves they are able to learn. They have ways to expand the moves they can learn though. They can learn extra moves from special tutors or by using specialized machines. And finally, there are some moves that they can learn from a parent of a different species. These last ones are egg moves, and out of all the moves a Pokemon can learn, these are the most contentious.
The biggest factor in our decision was that we are viewing Pokemon as composite characters in the same way we are viewing Mario, Link, or any other character who has different abilities from game to game. There’s obviously no single example where any of these characters could get access to their entire moveset, so it technically doesn’t make sense to give it to them. But to us, that is a less fun way to represent the character and a less fun way to analyze them.
That said, there are some decent arguments for the inclusion of egg moves from a lore perspective. You are able to rent Pokemon who have egg moves, implying that there is some kind of economy around breeding egg moves into powerful Pokemon. There are wild Pokemon who can learn egg moves, implying that they aren’t even that rare in the wild (though getting every egg move would, of course, be very unlikely still). And finally, there is some implication across the anime and manga that egg moves can be learned just by being around a Pokemon who can use them (though this is a very vague implication, to be fair). These reasons didn’t really factor into our decision, but they do serve to support it.
What about Seismic Toss?
I talked about this a bit more earlier on, but we used animations from the anime first, then the manga (if the anime wasn’t clear enough), then the games (if neither the anime or manga were clear enough). Seismic toss was clearly represented in the anime, and not in a particularly impressive way. It would be a strength feat for sure, just not a meaningful one.
Isn’t her speed a gag?
It is often portrayed as a gag, but it is still measurable. We don’t have anything against using gags as long as they hold up to our other rules.
Why does Jigglypuff get items/tms/hms/etc?
Jigglypuff is represented as being owned by a trainer in Smash, so it makes sense that she would be optimized by one. While one could argue that this is technically outside help, it really functions more like a passive upgrade, so we don’t have a problem with it. My answer about Egg Moves talks a bit more about why we are using TMs and HMs that aren’t available in every region.
Why do Pokemon get access to their entire moveset?
It’s the most fun for animation that way. There’s also no clear moveset limitations in the anime or manga that I could find, and it ultimately doesn’t factor in too much to fights. The biggest thing it does is guarantee that a Pokemon doesn’t come into the fight with the wrong build and get immediately screwed over because of it. While there’s a good argument for that being an intentional weakness of Pokemon, it would be pretty boring if we kept things limited like that. It’s honestly more of a decision made in order to increase the enjoyment of the viewers than for any other reason.
Jigglypuff kicked Pikachu faster than he could see… Why doesn’t she scale to his reaction speed?
That feat is certainly impressive, but it’s unclear how fast Jigglypuff is supposed to be moving. The whole scene is pretty slow-paced and laid back, which makes me think that it might be implying something other than raw speed. But most importantly, Pikachu’s reaction speed is so inconsistent that it’s not really possible to nail down how impressive this is even if we wanted it to scale to Pikachu. Pikachu’s slowest showings are already below the speed that Jigglypuff has, and it didn’t really feel like he was in top form in this clip either.
Why doesn’t Jigglypuff win if she can just make Kirby kill himself?
If Jigglypuff managed to inflict Kirby with confusion, there’s a very good chance that she wins the match a majority of the time. But with Kirby actually trying in this matchup, and given how confusion isn’t exactly the most likely option a trainer would use early into a fight, we didn’t think it was likely enough to work. Also, given how confusion is portrayed in the anime and manga, there was a very real chance that Kirby would just accidentally destroy the solar system and Jigglypuff would die from that.
Couldn’t Jigglypuff lock Kirby into status effects to win?
Status effects in Pokemon are really strong, especially when brought into other contexts. Sleep is an especially good option for pacification and the signature strategy of Jigglypuff. However, the status effects that Jigglypuff had access to simply weren’t enough to guarantee her a win. Sleep seems like a really good option… until you realize that Kirby can fight in his sleep. Even outside of this appearance, he’s shown some weird abilities implying that he can make his dreams interact physically with reality (and thus potentially protect him or wake him up) as well as arguable resistance to sleep effects, since he is never asleep for long when an enemy puts him to sleep.
Could Jigglypuff’s trainer just catch Kirby in a Pokeball?
There’s honestly a surprisingly good argument that this would actually work. But we didn’t want to have the trainer be that involved in the fight and Jigglypuff wouldn’t be able to hurt Kirby enough to weaken him to the point where a Pokeball would work anyway.
Wasn’t this a huge stomp? How could Jigglypuff ever stand a fair chance?
It was the biggest stat stomp we’ve had so far in the bracket for sure. But if Kirby didn’t know he was in a competition, we’re pretty sure that he wouldn’t be using enough power to be an immediate threat to Jigglypuff. During the time while he was still playing around, we figured that Jigglypuff would be able to get enough status effects stacked up on Kirby that she could stall out and wait for a victory from Toxic or the confused status. Given how experienced in battle and how well trained Jigglypuff would have to be at level 100, we felt it was reasonable that she could figure out the correct way to win the fight. It was far from a surefire method of victory, but it was enough that we felt there was significant room for debating the outcome.
We only recently settled for sure on fighters knowing that they were in a competition (it was a vague idea before, but it became concrete recently). Having that decision really removed any shred of a chance of victory Jigglypuff had.
We also believed for a while that Jigglypuff would be able to use Mimic to steal Kirby’s strongest attack before he used it in order to knock him out… this is not how that move works. Some of our earlier comments about this match being close were based on a misunderstanding.
And for what it’s worth, the entire team came into this match thinking it was a huge stomp in Kirby’s favor. Everyone always knew that he was far stronger. What surprised us is how, for a long time, the match was extremely close under our ruleset despite that (it also helped that we only fairly recently decided to allow Kirby’s minigames. It was far closer without those).
How are you deciding which moves/items Pokemon will use?
Our idea is to try and think of the build that is most likely to be used if the Pokemon were built to be able to take on any possible 1v1 fight without changing starting strategies. Some of that would change if it was immediately obvious what strengths and weaknesses the opponent has, but we’re assuming that the Pokemon knows literally nothing about the opponents they would be facing. This is not a super easy thing to figure out because nobody plays Pokemon like this.
We have the option of trying to constrain strategies and movesets to those shown in the anime, games, and manga, but that feels weirdly restrictive (we’d never see the vast majority of some Pokemon’s moves, even if we just limited it to what they learn from leveling up). Additionally, several Pokemon don’t really have a good representation of what a good trainer would actually do with them, especially in the anime and manga where creativity with moves plays a huge factor.
We could look at sites like Smogon that compile competitive strategies for Pokemon and use that. That’s a pretty good resource for learning the fundamentals of how to battle intelligently and getting inspiration for what a Pokemon excels at. However, it is focused on team battles, which yields very different strategies than what would excel in Smash Bracket (they also don’t have any info on Jigglypuff specifically, for what it’s worth). And even if they did have usable builds, they aren’t built with the same assumptions and considerations that we would have (they have a limited moveset, aren’t composited across all regions, and don’t take things from the manga and anime into account). So ultimately, that means it’s meaningless as anything but the roughest of starting points.
What we did for Jigglypuff (and will probably do with future Pokemon) is simply debate what possible movesets would work in the context I described above. The entire Pokemon franchise centers around how unique strategies can win even the most unlikely of battles, so we feel like there’s no way to find a “best” possible answer here. Once we have multiple options for strategies, we talk about which ones we feel are most likely, which ones are most dangerous for their opponent, and how difficult it would be to pull off the strategies. Personally, I tend to consider only the strategy most likely to win against their opponent, because I think that makes the debate the most interesting, but the team does keep in mind whether a strategy is too bizarre or unlikely to work.
After all that, we compare the strategies we have to the strategies their opponent needs to win and decide which seems more likely to work out. In the end, our strategies for Jigglypuff were:
- Stall with protect/substitute/healing and wait for confusion or Toxic to kill Kirby
- Focus sash + endeavor + quick attack
- Infatuate Kirby and hope that permanently pacifies him
- Put Kirby to sleep and hope he stays that way and doesn’t fight back
Kirby had far more win conditions, far more answers to Jigglypuff’s win conditions, far simpler win conditions, and the huge win button that is “just decide to obliterate the solar system with a punch.” So I don’t think we ever truly decided which strategy Jigglypuff would “canonically” use in the fight because none of them really mattered.
As a side note, I did actually have some really interesting numbers for Jigglypuff’s stalling win-con. Stacking stuff like confusion + infatuation + flinching moves + being able to use protect as a reaction like in the anime made for some really strong defense. It didn’t matter because Kirby could blow through protect and Jigglypuff wouldn’t have the time to set up that many status effects, but I’ll share the numbers with anyone who’s interested.
Why are you presenting Jigglypuff in a way that you could never play with in-game?
Some people are under the mistaken assumption that our goal is to represent characters in a way that you could actually play as in-game. That was never really our intention, but I understand where the confusion comes from. We strive to find the most accurate representation of a character possible, and our methods really highlight the importance of gameplay in that endeavor. However, we aren’t trying to limit any character to what is “possible” in game, since a lot of potential builds and strategies won’t be possible due to reasons like game balance or the nature of how the game plays out. We basically composite the arsenals and abilities of every character we look at, even if some of those characters are just composites of a single game. We feel like this leads to the best representation of the character as a whole and it often overlaps with things you could actually pick up and play in a game. But for a ton of characters, that simply won’t be possible. We are comfortable making this trade off for more interesting debates and animations though.
